Chapter 778: Pillar of ‘Permanence’
[Master. Incoming from below.]
"...really, Author?"
Yes, really.
The moment after Lostvayne’s warning, Arthur leapt back without hesitation, causing the Planet Lord’s eyes to widen in disbelief as he hadn’t expected Arthur to detect what was coming.
But Arthur had moved just in time to avoid the massive eruption of temporal energy that burst from beneath the floor, tearing through the ceiling and into the sky above. The surge of time law energy erupted with the fury of a volcanic blast, but instead of retreating, the Planet Lord charged straight into it.
From an outside perspective, it looked like a suicide run, but the moment the Planet Lord entered the pillar, both his Planet Lord Authority, and the Authority bestowed upon him by the Ruler he served, made the chaotic temporal energy to bend to his command.
"This domain belongs to the Empire of Permanence. Your tampering with time is forbidden here!!"
With that proclamation, he drove his spear into the ground, releasing a wave of energy that burst out at light speed.
It passed through Arthur before he could react, and at once he felt something begin to constrict around his Temporal Origin Core within his soul.
But before Arthur could even marshal a response, the Aspect of Time he wielded, connected to his Origin Core, reacted instinctively. It lashed out, resisting the Planet Lord’s command to render the core inert and fix it in that state permanently.
Before the power struggle could even conclude, Arthur’s Spatial Perception detected two sudden spikes in spatial energy concentration, accompanied by distortions in space that heralded the imminent formation of Spatial Gates at two locations within the estate.
"Lostvayne!!"
At his call, the sword shot forward at blinding speed, leaving a crimson trail of light as it cut through the air, reached the first forming gate, and destroyed the space in that region, destabilizing the structure.
The half-formed gate collapsed violently, and the entity that had been attempting to pass through it was devoured by the ensuing spatial storm.
Lostvayne kept moving without slowing for a moment, racing toward the second gate a kilometre away.
However, the brief second it took Lostvayne to reach the location was enough for the second gate to fully form, and someone had already begun emerging from it.
Without hesitation, Lostvayne drove its blade into their chest the moment they appeared, and though it wasn’t a fatal blow, the impact knocked them back into the gate.
The sword then wrenched itself free and slashed at the portal, tearing it apart. As the gate imploded, it sheared off the leg of the figure who had not yet fully passed back through it.
By the time the dismembered leg fell and golden blood splattered across the ground, Lostvayne was already shooting through the air, right back towards Arthur’s position.
The Planet Lord, sensing the collapse of the Spatial Gates, his hope for reinforcements, spun around in disbelief.
In that instant, he bent backwards, narrowly avoiding Lostvayne’s blade as it sliced through the exact space his head had occupied a moment earlier on its return flight.
And then, Arthur’s voice echoed in his left ear.
"You’ve got a lot of nerve to look away."
Before he could even turn, Arthur’s fist slammed into the side of his face, wreathed in anti-divinity and gravitational law energy. The impact hurled him across the collapsing building, through the erupting pillar of temporal energy, and he crashed down behind it.
Arthur reached out, grabbing Lostvayne and channelling destructive energy into the sword. But just as he was about to swing down—
[Wait, Master,] Lostvayne spoke. [If you do that, this planet will be destroyed.]
Arthur’s hand instantly froze.
For a moment, he weighed the value of the information he wanted to get from this world against the option of immediately annihilating the erupting pillar of temporal energy that posed a clear threat.
Then, activating his temporal authority, he saw exactly why Lostvayne had warned him.
This pillar of energy was erupting directly from the planet’s core.
’No, something embedded in the core is using the planet’s energy to generate this pillar.
And it’s linked to something else...’
Arthur traced the link of cosmic energy skyward, where it vanished into the upper atmosphere.
His Gravitational Authority, still active, informed him of something exerting pressure on the fabric of space-time in that direction.
’Right...this planet was a twin.’
The two planets were separated by only 500,000km.
Whatever was embedded in this planet’s core, was reacting with the one buried in the twin. This had probably alerted the Planet Lord over there, who had likely sent the two Deities Lostvayne had just prevented from entering this world via those spatial gates.
Arthur continued analysing the traces of temporal law energy and soon realized that they formed a kind of net, interwoven with the fabric of space-time and expanding across the entire region of space.
Just then, the Planet Lord, somehow unscathed from Arthur’s earlier attack, rose from the ground and charged at him once more.
As he passed through the pillar of temporal energy, unlike before, his body actively absorbed it, and his power surged dramatically, as though he was drawing strength from a future version of himself.
In his True Voice, he roared, |True Form, Release!|
His shout snapped Arthur out of his observation, and he turned just in time to see the god’s body erupt with divinity, growing twice its original size.
His hair and eyes glowed with blue temporal light, and his spear transformed, taking on a mechanical appearance.
The man immediately thrust it forward, and a blinding beam of pure temporal energy exploded from the tip, lancing straight toward Arthur.
Arthur casually swung Lostvayne, intending to split the temporal energy with his superior destruction. However, the moment the beam collided with his sword, he immediately realized that the force behind it far exceeded what the energy signature had suggested.
The impact knocked him back, sending his body crashing toward the ground, though he flipped mid-air and landed cleanly on his feet.
Looking down on his right arm, he saw that the material composing his shirt sleeve had aged to dust. Worse, the skin on his arm was scorched.
At this sight, Arthur’s eyes widened in disbelief. He hadn’t expected that an attack from an Inferior-stage Half-Deity could injure the current him, but alas, special circumstances had aligned.
Whoever created the mechanism generating that erupting pillar of temporal energy had an Authority at least equal to Arthur’s. By absorbing the pillar’s energy, the Planet Lord had temporarily borrowed the power of that superior Authority, along with the higher-grade temporal law energy it commanded.
’How is he even doing that?’
Arthur looked up at the Planet Lord, and in his left eye’s vision, he detected a massive concentration of temporal energy within the man’s chest.
’He has something else embedded inside him that lets him borrow that power, and he’s using it to borrow divinity from his future self?’
[That object is probably acting as an amplifier too. That’s why the borrowed Authority is this potent.]
Lostvayne added, and Arthur nodded in agreement, preparing to infuse his sword with destruction, only for the Planet Lord, upon seeing Arthur knocked back by his attack, to burst into laughter and shout,
|Ha ha! This is the power of the Great Ruler of Permanence. You are nothing before it!|
He engulfed his spear in flames laced with streaks of temporal law energy and swung it, unleashing a massive slash of burning temporal force.
Hearing his boast, Arthur froze, the destruction energy entering his sword receding.
"Nothing before it, you say?"
Then he let go of Lostvayne.
"Lostvayne, take the back seat. I’ll beat this motherfucker with my hands."
With that, Arthur’s eyes glowed and silver energy covered his arms. He kicked off the ground, launching into the air, and met the incoming slash of energy with a single punch.
His anti-divinity surged down his arm, breaking down the energy in the slash and causing it to explode. The resulting shockwave blasted forward, slamming into the Planet Lord and sending him flying backwards.
Arthur unfurled his wings, using them to propel himself after the airborne god, and landed another punch that sent him crashing into the ground.
The impact unleashed a massive shockwave that expanded outward, levelling everything in its path and instantly killing all the bystanders and soldiers unfortunate enough to be within ’Sector 1’.
